Beginning in 1975, Calatrava studied civil engineering at ETH Zurich.
ETH Zurich is the English short name for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, officially Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. It is a public research university specializing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and it is one of Switzerland’s leading institutions.
Calatrava had already studied architecture and urbanism in Valencia before moving to Switzerland. The civil-engineering degree expanded his understanding of forces, materials, and structural behavior—knowledge that became central to his later work. In 1981, he completed a doctorate in architecture at the same institution, researching the pliability of three-dimensional structures.
His Swiss education helps explain why his projects combine sculptural appearance with prominently expressed structural systems. Early commissions in Switzerland included railway facilities, warehouses, bridges, and the Zürich Stadelhofen railway station. A frequent quiz mix-up is EPFL, the other Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which is located in Lausanne; Calatrava’s studies were at the Zurich institution, not the University of Zurich.